#plantvgreview

[plantvgreviews]

Remnant 2 Is An Incredible Game That's Worth Every Minute of Your Time. But...

The title isn't misleading, Remnant 2 might be one of the only games released recently that is worth it's base $60 price tag. Hell, at the time of writing, I'd even say it's worth buying the three dlc that's scheduled to come out soon. (The first two are already out, but the last one is yet to be reviled.) However, I have some concerns about the future of the game. Nothing to lower the worth of Remnant 2 right now. But enough that I wanna bring them up to be addressed.

(This game is also incredibly deep, on the macro and micro level. If I miss something. I may come back here and change or add to this review to clarify.)

What is Remnant 2?

Remnant 2 is a third person looter shooter with soul-like elements. A simple concept in hindsight, but believe me, it gets crazier. Your character gets sucked through a big rock into alternate realities, such as;

An Overgrown Vegan Wonderland with Violent Plant-life and (sometimes racist) Furries That Would Swear on Their Hooves That They Remember Woodstock.

London, England circa 2024 (colorized) feat: The Newly Renovated Royal Palace

N'Erud

The Enigmatic Inner Machinations of Patrick Star's Mind

Earth, if World Leaders Refuse to do Something About Global Warming

The world variety is really a joy to explore. Including N'Erud! I may have chosen the worst part of it for the joke, but many of the dungeons in N'Erud are a blast. (We'll get into it further when I break down each world.)

Within each world is different variations of environments that feel like someone had lived there at some point. Each world had hosted a society of lore to be uncovered. And depending on which campaign you roll, you can get different pieces of lore to the same story. There are very few games that I actually enjoy uncovering the lore of myself. Guilty Gear, Tekken, Metal Gear Solid, BlazBlue, and Devil May Cry. But now Remnant 2 is added to that list of really fun lore to uncover. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I find it interesting. Not just in how it's written or how you can find new pieces, but for how it's implemented in the game.

Secrets Out Of Everyone's ***

Gunfire Games made Remnant 2 the Pepe Silvia to everyone's mail room. A couple of days ago I made a post on the Remnant 2 subreddit explaining a bug I found with the Polygun. Switching to the gun with infinite ammo when you had zero ammo caused the game to crash. After explaining the bug, I had two people in the comments theorizing about how it's not a bug and instead a way to access a new hidden item.

Not to spoil anything, or tell you where to exactly find the following. But here are some insane examples.

If you return two children to an orphanage, you can talk to the granny sowing by the fire to learn that they are actually an Oracle-like being. They love quilts, and if you let them ramble about them for a while, they'll give you a relic.

Rolling specific world's campaign will give you an open area to explore. In that open area there are three pieces of a circle pendant. But you can only pick up 1 in each instance of that campaign. So you have to play the same world three times to pick up each piece and give them to a merchant in the camp. That merchant will give you an amulet. Take that amulet behind a waterfall and reveal a secret passageway and receive a new gun.

The Backrooms hold a secret class that you can only get after beating the game once.

Stand next to a large sewer grate, and you'll be pulled into Jerma985's closet of dead bodies. Kill the rat king and you'll get a new class.

Two Kings claim to be the true king of an area. You are tasked with voting out the Imposter King via assassination. (I wish I was making up the Imposter part, but I'm not.)

A god of destruction is hunting a doe. You stumble upon the doe inside the god of destruction's lair. The devil tries to convince you to sin. This one fight has 4 DIFFERENT REWARDS based entirely on how the fight plays out.

If it wasn't instantly obvious, you should consult a wiki while playing this game. I also recommend using an item tracker too, because there are 742 items. We could be here all day with the insane interactions between player decisions and gameplay. But I want to leave you invested to experience some of them as they happen. (Also there are the two secret items that had to be data mined by the community to find. So who knows what we're missing.)

Expansive Library for Build Crafting

Remnant 2 is a massive game with player creativity and theory crafting at it's center. With a simple system of, pick two classes, then pick an amulet, then pick four rings. Nearly everything and anything you think of can be viable. If it's your first time playing, a simple build is preferred. There's a lot going on the macro and micro level, and the build you start with probably won't be the same build you end your run with. But;

Wanna make a build that focuses around guns and gun damage, then run Hunter and Gunslinger and blast everyone in your path. There's a build for that:

Wanna make a build that turns you Lifestealing Summoner?

Wanna play the Status Effect meta?

Wanna become an AOE Pharmacist from Florida?

Wanna be the child of Riden and Doomslayer?

The variety is immense, but it can feel tedious to obtain items that are MANDATORY for a build to work. Example, there's an amulet in The Forgotten Kingdom that gives a 30% increase to all summons's damage. If that's what you're lacking for your summoner build, you'll need to fork over $10USD to get the opportunity to get that amulet. Lick mentioned before, there's a gun that requires you to roll and reroll the dlc campaign three times to grab all the parts for it. It can and will be tedious at times, but the payoff is almost always worth it.

The build verity is so crazy that you'll pick up a ring that increases all damage you take by 200%, but increases your damage by 15%. You sit there and wonder why anyone would want to use that. Then you'll wake up in a cold sweat wanting to play Batman; bare-knuckle brawling mentally insane Brits in the sewers. That ring will be the pencil case sniff you need to get you through the day. Don't get hit lmao.

You won't run out of ideas for dumb ideas to play the game with. But that's something that brings me to by first worry.

DLC, Great But Sadly Necessary

At the time of writing this review, The Awakened King and The Forgotten Kingdom are the only two dlc available. Both of them are $10USD each. What they add to the game are new rings and amulets that add building blocks to classes that desperately needed them. The Summoner class was nearly unanimously regarded as the worst class in the game. Not bad, but over shadowed by the other class combinations. (Hunter/Gunslinger, Alchemist/Medic, Any other class/Secret Class) But if someone what a Necromancy fanatic, they're going to be underwhelmed with just the base game.

This also goes for the Handler class. The doggy is a very good boy/girl, but it's not a class worth missing out on; An Engineer turret, an Invoker Storm, or a Medic's Heals. Not that the other classes are broken and need nerfs. But that the Handler Class is under powered. Everything that the Handler can do, a different class can also do better AND MORE. But you can pet the puppy, so it makes it the best class in the game from an objective perspective.

(I hope this class gets a rework to make it worthwhile other than leveling it to lvl10 for the Kinship trait.)

Then there's the aspect of the classes we got with the dlc. Invoker is currently the strongest class in the game. Ritualist is also really REALLY good and can be used in tandem with Invoker. They spark the question of, 'Why do you need support classes when everything is already dead?' Elemental Damage is so strong that it doesn't make sense to use anything else when you're having problems with a boss. The game has an answer, it can give bosses Elemental Resist. But that's only a resistance, when I strike everything in a 24 meter radius with lighting for ~2000 damage. 🤷‍♀️ The storm lasts for 30 seconds, I'll pop a relic and chill till everyone's dead. If not, I'll throw out another one. "Opps wanted some motivation. Blew up their whole quadrant. I'm moving like Oppenheimer." -MF Dracula

They're just too strong for the glass casing they're in to be considered a problem.

When I say the dlc is necessary, it's cause there are some builds that don't work AS WELL as others with out the dlc. You still get an extremely satisfying experience for $60USD. But if you unlock Summoner, Handler, or Explorer with just the base game, they are going to feel lack-luster in comparison to other classes. Which is a real shame.

Gameplay is Well Balanced But Less Than You'd Expect

With builds, world secrets on top of secrets, Remnant 2 has a lot to offer. And we haven't even shot anything yet! So let's talk about controls.

Remnant 2 is very stiff feeling when you first pick it up. Not a bad kind of stiff, it's designed. Risk vs Reward is a common theme alongside Trade Offs.

Jumps are hard coded when you dodge roll off ledges, which also means that there's no designated jump button. You gotta sprint and roll. This isn't a hypermobility, Forknite, CoD montage fever dream. You have to be methodical with your actions. It can be easily expressed between whether you should dodge or dodge ROLL. If hold a movement key and press space, you'll dodge roll. (Like any souls-like game.) But if you just press space, then you're character will stagger back with less i frames, but recover faster. A LOT faster. To the point that you want to get as good as you can with neutral dodges. Especially if you're wearing heavy or ultra heavy armor.

As I said, the stiffness of the controls is designed carefully. Your character's movement options aren't what makes you strong. It's your weapons/armor/class skills/actual gamer skills that make you strong. Becoming better at the game, and understanding of a situation to better position yourself. That's what will keep you alive. But messing up a roll, or an important shot will convert you into a firm believer of any and all religions.

On the scale of Call of Duty Finest Hour to Warframe, Remnant 2 falls nicely around Red Dead 2 and Gears of War. There are some techs you can learn, and simplistic ai enemies that you can take advantage of to make up for simpler controls. Speaking of, videogamedunkey moments are frequent in this game. (If you know, you know.)

I'm going to sound like a psychopath in this next section, but just know, them rolipoly b****** in Yaesha were asking for the smoke.

Gun play in Remnant 2 is really fun! The sounds of each gun tells you where they originate from. Thorn is from Yaesha and carries it's aesthetic. Similarly, Deceit has Losomn's Fae style. Each boss drops a material that can be made into a weapon and has a mod that makes them unique. Some guns don't have unique mods, meaning that you can attach a mod to it. Mods can vary from Lacing your bullets with fire or shoot a big spear into an enemy, to freeze a group of enemies in the 4th dimension or launch a fire tornado.

The universal gun reload speed is pretty slow in comparison to other shooters. But it incentivizes you to play smarter. The slow reload speed is off set by just how satisfying guns are to use. Each gun sounds and looks cool as hell. Then there's the Polygun...

I don't have a PHD in astrophysics and Proctology, but the fis**** you get from it is unearthly. Just imagine trying to play dark souls, but after every few swings you have to perfectly time a qte to be allowed to swing more. That's the Polygun. It's the best gun in the game if you don't **** it up.

"Oh the Places You Will Violate the Geneva Convention" - Ford

Like shown before, Remnant 2 has five world in total that you will explore on each playthrough. Three of them have multiple different layouts, dungeons, events, and 'injectibles' to spice up what happens in them. (Yaesha, Losomn, and N'Erud.) While two remain constant from run to run. (The Labyrinth, and The Final World.) On your first playthrough, it can feel overwhelming. And rightfully so.

Each world has (or will have) 3 different campaigns that you can roll in a play through. One of those three campaigns are the dlc campaign, so if you don't have it, or haven't beaten the dlc adventure then you won't have to worry about them.

Losomn has 24 different locations

Yaesha has 20 different locations

N'Erud has 12 different locations (doesn't have it's dlc yet.)

That's a lot! A few of the locations are large areas to run around in, with multiple doors that can take you to dungeons. Every Dungeon has their own boss fight too. Included in each dungeon are also 'injectables'; secret areas that you can find behind a statue, covered by destructible crates, or through fake walls. There's a massive sandwich that you can bite into with each world.

So, I was planning on writing about each world. However, this review is already really long. And there's other things that deserve to be in the review more. So I'll leave it at this;

Bosses are tough when you don't have a stable build. For your _first_ playthrough, play on the easiest difficulty.

Each world is basically their own game inside the bigger game of Remnant 2. There are elements and interactions with NPCs and items outside their respective worlds. Play with a wiki in a separate window.

If you feel like a boss is too hard, switch your build around. You might find that a mod/skill/amulet you were running might not do anything to the boss. Or you might just need to wear tankier armor.

Performance

Remnant 2 was made predominately for the console version. I play on the PC port, so my experience might be a bit different from yours. My PC isn't a slacker either. (NVIDIA 3060ti, Intel i7, 32gbs RAM) There is a major flaw in the optimization for this game. I run it on medium graphic settings, but I still get frame drops in a few combat areas. They're few and far between, but enough to wanna bring that up.

I also wanna bring up a specific setting in Remnant 2 that is critical to the game to actually run well. You see, instead of actually optimizing the game's PC port themselves, Gunfire off loads that job to AI. I don't like Generative AI. AI artwork is theft. But to my understanding, Remnant 2 isn't generated by any AI. It uses AI to help optimize the game in the background as you play. I don't know how it works, but I haven't seen anywhere that says it's making something itself. So I'm ultimately fine with this. AI IS still doing a job that humans CAN do, but Gunfire is handing it off to the AI to then focus on other areas. Which benefits them, and helps the consumer. At least for now...

The AI used to help optimize the game is made by other companies. NVIDIA, AWD, and Intel. Meaning that only specific hardware can use this highly necessary setting. And in the off chance that NVIDIA's AI changes version enough, I might not be able to play the PC version of Remnant 2. With the optimization relying on hardware and software that will eventually change, the crutch that's holding Remnant 2 up is potentially going to stop supporting it. And that worries me.

Since it is just optimization, hardware will become strong enough to overpower these problems. But who knows how long that will take to become affordable to the average consumer.

If your computer's hardware is able to run the AI optimization tools, then you might be able to play this game. But if you know your computer isn't that strong, then this might be a game you'll have to skip for a while.

Speaking of Affordable, Let's Put a Price on This Game.

At the time of writing this review, I'm at 105 hours. (And I'm about to put in some more after I'm done.)

The current base price of Remnant 2 on Steam is $50USD. Which I think is a F****** STEAL. I'd easily give Remnant 2 a $60/$50. If Soulslike/Roguelite Looter Shooters are your thing, this game should already be in your library. The fact you haven't bought and played the game already is offensive to me.

There are two other 'Editions' for sale. To keep is simple, the 'Deluxe Edition' is a complete waste of money. Everything in it can be achievable in game for free. Don't buy the 'Deluxe Edition'. The 'Ultimate Edition' is what you should be looking at. It comes with the dlc for a cheaper price than the base game + dlc separately. (Plus it comes with some other stuff that doesn't really matter.) Other than "The Awakened King", "The Forgotten Kingdom", and the last dlc campaign, there are no other dlcs for sale. So our minimum maximum price that you can pay for is set to $70USD.

I'd say 75/70 for Remnant 2 is perfectly reasonable for what you're getting.

This game is worth more than it's cost. If you haven't played it already, I'm sure you'll like it.

(Since starting to write this review, I beat the game twice by the time I finished it. Hence why it took so long.)

ALSO I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT THIS GAME HAS ONLINE MULTIPLAYER LIKE F****** **** CAN IT STOP GETTING BETTER!?!

[plantvgreviews]

How I Do My Reviews

Hey there!~ My name's Plant and welcome to my video game reviewing blog. Here's a little information about me to help you understand who I am;

I'm 22 years old at the time of this post. (May 17th, 2024)

I'm from the US.

I've been playing video games since I was a kid. (Earliest gaming memory was PS2 SoulCalibur 2.)

My main way of playing games are on the PC. Thus, majority of my reviews are going to be on the PC ports of games. (specs for nerds: Intel Core i7, NVIDIA 3060ti, 32gbs of ram. It's no push over.)

I like a wide variety of games and media. (My main Spotify playlist contains Paramore, Led Zeppelin, RATM, Foo Fighters, but also Kendrick Lamar, Lil Nas X, YOASOBI, Bloodywood, Britney Spears, Johnny Cash, Guilty Gear and DMC5 OST, Veggietales and Clowncore.)

I don't believe in judging one piece of art/creative work to another one. (It's an unhealthy practice to judge a game for something that it isn't trying to accomplish.)

Since you clicked to keep reading, I'm guessing that last point confused you. Think of it this way; I'm not going to give games the typical rating between 1 through 10. Instead, I'll be judging games based on something that they all have in common. Their price tag.

Gaming is expensive now-a-days. AAA titles are starting to go for $70USD, and a lot of games aren't worth their price tbh. Then on top of that, there's a plague of dlc for games that raises the price point even further. Battle Passes, Micro transaction, "Surprise Mechanics", etc, etc. I want my reviews to inform people what games, imo, are and aren't worth the amount of money that companies are asking for.

How to Take the Scores I Give

In each of my reviews, I'll give a price point that I think the game is worth in comparison to what the Steam/Epic Games asking price is. In the case of games with dlc and battle passes, I'll give a _base game_ price score. Then I'll factor in the dlc.

(Also, the price point I'd give the game isn't bound by a maximum. I can and will give scores that are higher than the asking price on online marketplaces.)

Example:

Say I was reviewing "Buck Up and Drive!". When I come to the scoring part of my review, I'll show you how many hours I have in the game.

(Specifically for this game, it was released on itch.io before the steam release. So my hours are higher, maybe ~10 hours in total.)

Then I'll show you the base game price point.

From here I'll let you know what I think is a good price is in comparison to what the asking price is.

In the case of "Buck Up and Drive!", I'd give the game an 8/8. It's filled to the brim with personality and is an incredibly fun and re-playable arcade racer to pull out when you're waiting for friends to hop online. Plus you get a very interesting and unique 1v1 fighting game on top of the main experience. For a fun little 'balls to the wall' arcade racer, this game is definitely worth the asking price.

("Buck Up and Drive!" doesn't have dlc, so I'll give a second example to show how dlc effects the overall score.)

Example 2

I'm not someone who grew up with Dragon Ball or Dragon Ball Z. In fact, I've only watched DBZA. And that was rather recently. However, Dragon Ball FighterZ is an unbelievably great game. The look and feel of the iconic Dragon Ball aesthetic is present throughout. The dedication of the art and thematic resemblance of the franchise is something that comes once in a lifetime. Even though DBFZ came out in 2018, it still holds up to this day.

Well... kinda.

Since DBFZ has incredible visuals and sound design, I doubt it will age in that department at all. 20yrs from now, we are still going to look back at this game in awe of what ArcSys has created. So i'm going to skim over this for the sake of making this example review brief. But know, I'm giving the game full points in the design department.

But that's when we get to gameplay. This is where I have some opinions that some people might not like. (But my opinions are my own preferences and they won't impact the score.) DBFZ is a 3v3 tag based fighting game. For the people that don't understand what I said, here's a breakdown; In the character selection screen you have to pick 3 characters to be on your team. Each character has their own moves they can perform in game. With 3 of those special moves being usable as assists. Assists are performed by the characters that are not in play at the moment. This opens up the tool box substantially of what any player can do with any character. If your main character has a bad poke option, you can bring a Goku with a beam assist to cover that option for you. (There are tons of Youtubers and other fighting game pros who can explain this better than I can. I recommend you take their word over mine. Also cause I'm trying to make this detailed enough to show what a full review would look like. but not too long to bog down the intro post to my blog.)

I, personally, don't prefer tag fighters. I feel like it raises the ceiling that's needed to _really_ start playing the game. But I do like playing them, even though I'm bad at the tag mechanic. I just gravitate more to 1v1 fighters. This isn't enough to remove points, cause again, it's my opinion and the tag mechanic is implemented well in DBFZ.

Actually playing the game, all special inputs are typically a quarter circle + a button (or an assist button for a super). There are some double down inputs, but the buffer is good enough to not make them scary to perform in game. If combos are a concern for you, there is a global auto-combo that every character has. It's not the best option, but when you're learning the game or a new character, it's nice to have.

*BUT* we have to talk about the online play. Fighting games don't just rely on good netcode to be successful, they demand it. If a fighting game as bad netcode, no one is going to play it. Sadly, DBFZ has some really bad netcode. You will be playing in about 9 to 13 frames of delay on a great connection. But if you're playing with someone across the country from you, prepare for the slowest slide-show presentation of your life. At best, DBFZ's netcode is tolerable, at worst it doesn't work. This has heavily taken a toll on the player base of DBFZ as newer games have come out with better netcode, or in most cases, rollback netcode. (Here's a really detailed article if you don't know how delay or rollback netcode works. Thank you Infil. Papa Bless 🙏)

There was a beta for DBFZ's fabled and elusive rollback update, and it was glorious! So I definitely wanna make a more detailed and through review when that finally comes out. (Also Optimum internet has been shitting the bed every twenty minutes for the past 5 months. So I'll have to wait until that's fixed too. I don't wanna review a game on the prospect that something out of the game's control is causing a problem.)

Conclusion:

Dragon Ball FighterZ is a great game that I have put 133 hours into. With more to come once rollback is added.

But I think the price of the game is a bit expensive for what is currently offered. For a game released at the beginning of 2018, $60USD is a bit much. Never the less there being a 'FighterZ edition' and 'Legendary Edition' costing more. Especially with the jank netcode.

I'd give the base game of Dragon Ball FighterZ a 25/60. The netcode being garbage delay based is really hurting the overall product. And many of the base edition characters are good but missing 20 of the 44 characters is a massive downside. For fighting games, you kinda need the whole roaster. These two problems should lower the base cost of the game imo.

However, if you're a new player picking up DBFZ for the first time, I recommend buying the 'Legendary Edition' because it comes with all the necessary dlc (extra characters) for a cheaper price than buying the base game and dlc separate. The 'Legendary Edition' is $110USD while the base game and 3 fighter passes + Android 21 (Lab Coat) is $145USD.

So to quickly calculate how much dlc is in Dragon Ball FighterZ, I'll start with the 'Legendary Edition'. Then add in how much is left out of the bundle.

What's left out of the 'Legendary Edition' appear to be the Anime Music Packs, the SSGSS Lobby Avatars, and the SSGSS Goku and Vegeta Unlocks. (The last one doesn't even make sense because you can play the story mode to unlock them for free. But that $3 dlc leaves out the other character that is unlockable by playing the story mode?! Idk, Bandai is dumb as hell sometimes.)

Which brings my final price to about 75/145. So much inflation to this game that honestly doesn't need to be there. So many of the dlc characters are just another version of Goku, or Goku fused with Vegeta. I understand _why_ they did it, but I wish that some other characters got a spotlight. (Chi-Chi, Mr. Popo, Mr. Satan, and Dende would have been really cool additions to make the roaster feel more like Dragon Ball and less like Goku and friends.)

Dragon Ball FighterZ is still one of the best fighting games on the market today. Please don't hear me say that it's only worth $75 out of $145 dollars, and think that I don't like this game. I love it! But if you're a new player wanting to hop in and train before the rollback update. I'd say to wait for big sale.

Anyway, yeah that's how I wanna do my reviews, okay bye!